Chasing the Sun
by LizMaryO
Summary: What was left after a terrible tradegy was a broken hearted girl, and a boy who never understood what it meant to the others around him, but years after realizes that one life, one moment, and one chance is all that's left to fix his broken world. Dark.
1. Chapter 1 Predator and Prey

Chasing the Sun

yo! so originally this was my second Naruto fanfic I wrote...hehe I guess now it's going to be my first...cuz I ended up disliking the first one..too...wierd... yeah so this story takes placec 2 years from the main arc..so everyone's around 17-18, and it has a lot of OC-ish characters...but you'll see, originally I meant this chapter to have around 8 parts...but since that way I couldn't finish chapter 1... I just decided to cut each part to one..so sorry for its shortness...

much luv

liz

Chapter one- Predator and the Prey

The wind blew softly among the forest floor gently waking the autumn leaves that swayed and moved with the low breeze. The sun, which had traveled ever so slowly from its position in the east to its current position at the center of the sky, burned warmly as the first signs of the afternoon began to set in. It was still plenty warm however in the shade of the forest below. A silence began to settle in a small clearing after the breeze had stopped humming and subsided into a soft caress. There were no birds chirping their afternoon greetings, there were no foxes or wolves expertly stalking their prey, there were no rabbits or squirrels alerting their companions of coming danger. In fact there was an absence of ants and other insects scurrying along on their business. There was nothing. Nothing but Silence. The silence was not disturbing however. It was strangely beautiful if it could be described as such. Pure Silence, Absolute silence. A golden light streamed down from the high sun and came down, filtered by the autumn trees with yellowing leaves into a brilliant honey toned midst, the silence only helped to accentuate the beauty of the late September day.

Another small gust of wind breezed through the bottom of the forest floor gently breaking the silence as it flew softly above and against the leaves that had accumulated there as they began to fall off the high tops of the surrounding trees. The breezed danced with them, it prodded them softly together gently pushed them into the sky and engaged in a slow rhythmic dance with the fluttering leaves. Softly they floated upward. Softly still. There danced dipped up and down soaring and flying through the vast open space. The Wind grew impatient. It demanded more. It thrusted the leaves faster, and pushed the leaves faster. It poked it prodded; it pushed them, faster, and faster still. Ignoring the fact that still and wonderful peace was broken now into a rancorous and roaring tumult of the ripping wind. The wind howled its protest against its violent speed, the leaves disappeared into a pointed blur, and whizzed past in a low hum, thrashed without a choice into the great wind.

Suddenly, abruptly, without an explanation.

It stopped

The Wind has lost interest, or had overexerted itself enough that it had collapse, what ever the case the weary leaves fainted and floated gently down to the ground with a minimal opposition from the exhausted breeze. There was no gentle peace anymore. The disarray of the harsh wind was apparent and a sudden chill gripped its place, seeping sinisterly into the now cold ground.

There was a new entity in the midst of the devastation. In the middle of the discord a dark figure crouched low to the ground as if paying homage to the devastation that had occurred in its wake, slowly it began to rise as if coming from a darken void. The folds of a dark coat shrouding the figure billowed softly, threateningly down as if they had not dared to oppose the silent will of their master. Red and white calmly strode out of the back displaying a striking cloud pattern that the cloak had tried to hide. Dark hair silently disengaged itself from the remainder of the body falling swiftly, in uniform, a small portion breaking apart to fall in first the front of the figure's pale head. A hand detached from the black and red mass and reached inside to retrieve something…a pointed woven straw hat, which it then proceeded to situate on top of the head, covering the rest of the person's concealed face. There was something different about this person, something almost inhumane. The coat had long since stopped moving and clung to the figure's body revealing many sharp angles as well as less noticeable softer ones that curved slowly and gently faded. The wind blew softly against the face daring to sway the hair at the edge revealing the elegant curves of the neck and jaw along with soft fully formed lips, all distinctly female. She stood there motionless listening to the surrounding environment caring little for the sudden disturbance she had caused she waited.

It wasn't long until she heard what she was looking for; shouts were being carried on the drifting breeze and the cold forest floor. At first an indistinguishable babble of voices, soft like the bubbling of the stream a short distance away, growing louder faintly, that any ordinary person would not realize the change in volume until it was fairly close by. Silently she listened to the their sounds analyzing it in the stillness of the forest, then her lips broke into a frightening but beautiful smile, mesmerizing yet terrifying. She broke her stance and with slow fluid icy movements strode into the darkening forest leaving only the quivering and shivering leaves to cower behind in the echo of her resounding cold presence.


	2. Chapter 2 Gomenasai

Second Chapter whoo! this story i'd like to think isn't conventional so it'll skip around but bear with me please? well here chapter 2 :)

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Gomenasai

Sunlight shone brightly and warmly on that beautiful spring morning, birds that had been silenced through the harsh cold winter returned with their melodious glory. Children were heard laughing and chattering amiably running around and splashing in a huge luxurious garden, while older adults walked regally around its perimeter in a fashion that dignified respect and attention- even from the younger ones who bowed at their every encounter before scurrying off to do their tasks. There was one man in particular, who strode confidently, tall and strong in stature with waist length hair tied carefully in the small of his back that commanded the most attention, although he seemed to scowl at the world through tight lips. As he walked slowly through the garden his eyes surveyed the rancorous children and came to rest on a boy in particular with his back to him. A quirky expression flitted across cold eyes for a brief moment before turning his attention past the boy and proceeding to walk into and down a grand and lavishly decorated corridor that started out with a variety of colorful paintings, sculptures and plants and open walls from which the laughing children could still be seen by. The man paid no attention and continued to walk down the corridor. By and by the surrounding aura of the place changed as the open walls disappeared to big blank white walls with the paintings and plants growing scarcer and more far apart. The pictures themselves seemed to loose their vibrant colors slowly turning greyer and darker. The distance valleys, and high mountains that were usually portrayed had changed to depict grizzly scenes of battles and death. It seemed that the darkness within the paintings had seeped into the walls drenching them in a deep blood red color. Scrolls now hung from the walls hissing taunts and threats; Strength, courage, ferocity, and other such words, stopping in front of an impervious sheet of smooth black paper doors. They opened slowly and softly with a scuttling noise akin to scattering rats.

The room enclosed between the two doors was no different from the hallway outside. It was certainly no more brighter. The only light that seemed to drift through was the light that was forced through rectangular slits of fabric that blazed along the ceiling. The floor was up of long thin planks of wood that were brightly polished smooth like glass.

In the middle stood a man, proud, fierce, and empowered with a hard face, and colder eyes. He stood over towering over a small dark heap on the ground. Distain, disbelief, danger, and arrogance shown in his sinister dark eyes.

"Get up," he ordered. His voice was smooth, cold as his eyes, full of authority and with a menace edge. The heap on the ground stirred ever so slightly. Anger flashed across his face.

"Are you defying me?" he asked in a deadly voice.

"N-n-no f-fa-ather," a tiny voice squeaked from somewhere inside the heap, distant and feeble, anger exploded across his face and his voice cut across like a whip

"Get up!" He barked the command and very slowly the heap began to get up and dismantle itself to reveal a small child, with huge blank lavender eyes, scarcely breathing, her face strained with weary exhaustion. Rudely, forcefully, painfully, the man leapt to strike the child in the center of her small frame, there was no sound of reproach, or defense as his arm collided. The body slammed onto the opposing wall with a sickening thud, and the child slumped to floor.

"You are weak" the man spat, glaring hard at the child on the floor with his blank icy glare. The small child moved, and with all the strength she could muster began to move across the floor crawling painfully, until she collapsed. Moving once more she struggled with making her legs obey her and stood up, shaking uncontrollably.

"Stand up. keep your guard up!" he spat. Ashamed to be giving the reminder and with acute disgust he looked at the kid who raised her head ever so slowly to meet his piercing stare. His eyes narrowed, loathing etched into every line on his face and wordlessly flew at her again. This time, seeing him approaching her arms came with great strength in a feeble defensive move.

It didn't help.

His arm connected with hers and swept her away fast and powerful, there was no time to doge, no time to react as she was hit once again and fell to the ground like a discarded rag and lay without moving. Disdainfully the man walked over to stand above the collapsed girl. His eyes looked her over once and he spoke once more, his anger reigned in, yet in a hash soft deadly tone, his voice rising above a whisper slightly, yet everyone in the room was able to hear him.

"You are a disgrace. Unfit for the task your birth has set upon you. Go. Get out of my sight."

He turned and proceeded to leave the room not sparing remorse or a backward glance to the fallen girl. A woman who had witnessed the entire spectacle crossed the room and came to the girl, bowing reverently to the man she proceeded to gather her. Taking care to produce no further injury then the ones the previous man had caused her she gently picked her up in her arms.

"Go…" it was soflt, fleeting, barely a whisper, the attendant wasn't sure at first if she had even heard it. Surely she didn't hear it. To answer her thoughts the girl spoke even softer than before.

"Gomena…" was this girl for real? Whas she mad? The attendant stopped and gazed shocked and the nearly dead girl she held.

"Gomenasai." Sorry? for what? she had no fault in what destiny gave her, but she had already fallen into the black pit where darkness held her in its waiting embrace.

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Review?

thank you:)


	3. Chapter 3 An Unlikely Encounter

On to chapter three yay! back to where we were before, before, this story's jumpy and i kinda like it that way, soo...

Chapter 3 An Unlikely Encounter

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A few hundred yards away from where the woman once stood was another group of figures that sped forward and raced through the forest undergrowth occasionally jumping onto the low branches when the path on the ground had been obscured. They appeared as blurs as the speed at which they were running at was fast enough that it seemed impossible to see them for anything but blurry dots that would appear to randomly move forward to their unknown target. After a while on constant acceleration, a voice rang out from the squad.

"Are you sure we're going the right way? This guy could be anywhere by now!"

"Positive, the man I spoke to said the camp wasn't too far from here."Another voice responded.

"I wish I could see how far ahead we are," the first voice groaned. A tense and wary silence fell upon the group an another voice emotionlessly responded:

"Yeah, i do too."

The team continued in silence. The afternoon shadows were half approaching their peak but the traveling group paid no attention yet, gradually they began to slacken their pace, until they grew to be recognizable human figures, quietly absorbing the cooling air and the warm rays of the afternoon. There were four of them, traveling silently through the forest until quiet abruptly one of them stopped.

It was a young woman with a slender frame, and average height. She had fair skin, and a broad brow, paled bright pink hair framed her strong face and was cut off slightly above her shoulders. At the top of her head she wore a headband in a dark red, maroon color that matched the kimono style blouse that she had on. She wore dark green pants and small heeled sandals. Her emerald eyes scanned the surrounding area suspiciously.

Another member of her team flew down beside her, a young man. He was taller, lean, with light tanned skin that gently hinted at muscular strength underneath. He wore an long orange cape that fell to his ankles with what seemed like black flames that decorated the bottom, which for its outrageous color did not seem to look out of place on his visage. His eyes shone like the past clear blue skies alight with burning curiosity and slight annoyance.

"What's wrong Sakura-chan?" he asked in a teasing manner, "Are you tired already?"

The woman named Sakura didn't comment or take apparent notice of the young man's words. Slowly she drew from the pouch she kept at her side, a small kunai and with concentration focused on her Surrounding looking for something amidst the heavy foliage. She still made no attempt to answer the boy's question. Not finding anything worth attacking she retracted the weapon back to her side. Bringing her hands up she placed them in a certain manner. The young man alarmed recognized the movement and did the same.

"Are we under a genjutsu" the young man's behavior had changed suddenly his muscles tense and coiled prepared to strike at any given moment waiting ready for the right time.

"No" came her response. She spoke quietly, softly, as if not daring to believe her own judgment.

"I thought there might be something, I think I saw something, something black... I think" she drew out in a daze, not quite sure if she knew what she was seeing and what was going on.

There was a movement behind her. Shocked she looked behind her at the same time the young man lunged.

"Kuso!" the young man breathed recognizing the two men that had just appeared. They were ninjas, and had a reputation for being deadly and strong, as well as stealthily overcoming opponents. However these ninja were not the enemy, but their comrades on their extended assignment. The young man cursed once more realizing that he was unable to stop his attack. In a last ditch effort to stop himself he swerved colliding with a nearby tree branch. The branch buckled and with a loud snap cracked and separated itself from the tree it had been a part on and began its descend towards the ground, taking the young man with it. Annoyed, the young man leapt to a nearby branch and jumped branch to branch until he came to where the rest of the team stood.

"What's going on?" he demanded, annoyed but not angry, tense at the attitude the other members of the cell had. They were ill at ease. The blonde looked over the last two of his companions, both male, one a tall hooded male the jacket he wore long and appeared worn by constant use, he wore dark thin glasses that reflected the dim light and held the secret of what was behind them as well as the horrors and images it had seen. It was impossible to figure out what his emotions were he cloaked them very well, but something in his intuition signaled that there was something amiss about the way he stood. The blonde looked over to the next man, tall as well with brown spiky hair much like the blonde's, and with a distinguishable markings on his cheekbones as well, only his bore two red triangles, that to him seemed to represent fangs. His eyes were small beady and had a certain sharpness to them, like the eyes of an animal, at his side stood a large white canine, more like a bear than a dog for its size. It was easy to tell what those two were feeling. The dog was shifty, constantly searching and sniffing the air for something, the man, was pale and stared blankly at the tree beside him.

"Did you guys see anything?" Sakura asked ignoring the blonde. Apprehensive despite her dazed attitude. The browned spiked man immediately whipped his head around to look at her. His eyes narrowed yet he responded:

"See anything? No we didn't _see _anything, but..." he left the sentence drift off and his was took on a faraway solemn look.

"But what?" the blonde boy's annoyed facial expressions, seemed to grow, until they became the face of a hardened adult, serious and hard all notion of boyhood swept away. Instead of the brown haired man however it was hooded male that responded in a toneless voice:

We caught a scent that we are not so sure of."

"Is it an enemy Kiba?"

Sakura spoke calmly. Both she and the blonde noticed the others immediate discomfort at the question, more prominent int eh boy Kiba than in the hooded male.

"No! No it can't be, I don't think it would be, its impossible they're dead!" Kiba exclaimed looking wildly at Sakura and the hooded man.

"Dead" the blonde inquired,his eyebrow knitting together, he had never seen Kiba act this way before.

"They are dead! I saw it, you saw it too didn't you!" He was shaking now, overcome by a wild, unexplainable irrational fear he was not accustomed to fighting to regain control, he looked back but found that he was unwillingly brought back to that memory, that day, that with his entire being desired to never remember, always forget.

...the sun, bright lively warm, so bright on that day, those clear blue skies.

…those people,there were so many of them, so many,

...their eyes, they could never see what was to come, a curse, an irony on those eyes that were blind.

...That smile. That beautiful smile, turned to ash and dust in the wind, into a horrifying grimace burned into his nightmares, into his mind, that smile, destroyed and swept away from the face of the earth. That smile gone.

"Kiba" "Kiba?" "Kiba!"

The voices brought him back to reality. He opened his eyes, and was surprised to see himself on the floor. He shivered forcing the memories back to the place in his head where he couldn't feel them. Fixing his expression to be the standard ninja nonchalance he picked himself up, and stood facing the rest of ninja who looked at him with expressions varying from concern and to confusion. He ignored them and spoke in a quiet impassive voice:

"Forget it, we've wasted enough time as is, I sense no immediate danger. Shino? Sakura?

The hood male, Shino, responded just as impassively:

"My allies sense no immediate danger"

"Yeah, what ever happened before hasn't happened again" Affirmed the pinkette.

The blonde stared at them, Something had happened that had shaken each one of them but yet they wanted to reject the possibility that it had. Yet what evidence did he have to support his theory? He shook his head and muttered a few words before begrudgingly gave them the order to advance forward. They did so with heavy burdened steps as each one tried gradually to forget what had transpired, their faces held nothing but a blank mask where behind it each one hid the torrent of emotion they held inside.

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Big thanks to all of you who story alerted this story and LazyGaga for her reviews greatly appreciated :)

Again apologies for the shortness…but I think this is the longest "chapter" yet D:

on another note, Naruto's appearance was the most difficult to write... he's just wayyy to good looking for his own good :)

Flame?

Rave?

Review?

Thank You :)

oh i think i'm seriously going to add Narusaku in here what do you think? and so far i've been the one Betaing my stuff but are any of you interested in editing the future chapters and my other stories?


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